


Dreams from the Dark

by Isagel



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Caning, Dominance/submission, F/M, Femdom, Friendship, Kink Without Sex, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-07
Updated: 2011-05-07
Packaged: 2017-10-19 03:17:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/196276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isagel/pseuds/Isagel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"On the floor," she tells him, and he falls to his knees, to his hands, falls deeper without her asking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams from the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Written for thingswithwings, who prompted me with: "Teyla and John. They don't have sex, but they do have . . . hmmm. Something."

At the beginning, she lays her hands on his shoulders, bending him down towards her, and their foreheads touch. His breath across her lips, her air in his lungs. That is where they start.

He is calmer already, when they move apart, perhaps freed from a fear of seeking her out, from some irrational worry that she might turn him away. He must know by now that she will not, but he does not easily ask for what he needs.

Perhaps he will never understand the honor she feels, that he asks her.

"Undress for me, John," she tells him, and his hands are steady on the buttons of his uniform as he removes it. She would not know how much he wants, were it not for the quick rise and fall of his chest.

He is beautiful to look at, like this, muscles shifting beneath bare skin, but he remains soft under her gaze, and she has never sought to touch him as lover touches lover. They are other than that - closer, perhaps, by virtue of battles fought and responsibilities shared, of her child newborn in his hands and his body lifeless in her arms. They are family, and everything which passes between them is an act of love, but if he shares her bed, sometimes, afterwards, it is only for comfort and warmth, as brother sleeps with sister, as warrior will curl around warrior, guarding each other's dreams from the dark.

"On the floor," she tells him, and he falls to his knees, to his hands, falls deeper without her asking, elbows bending, his cheek pressing flat against the surface of Atlantis, his backside raised in the air for her.

She feels the thrill of it, the weight, the power entrusted.

A stillness settles inside her.

She is the blade curved around the pale line of his back; the dark will not touch him.

Her feet are bare below the hem of her skirt; she sees his eyes track their steps across the floor as she walks to him. His lower lip is caught between his teeth and she can feel him waiting, feel the tension he always tries to mask make its way towards the surface.

She stands over him, lays the bare sole of her foot across his neck. His fingers clutch at the floor, and then a breath rushes out of him. She presses down, reassuring him with firmness. He licks his lips, his eyelashes fluttering against his cheek. She imagines she can feel his pulse, fluttering upwards through her body, a reverberation.

When he yields, she feels that, too. Rings on water, travelling outwards from the sudden calm at the center. She smiles, and presses just a little harder, as reward.

He says her name.

"How many?" she asks.

He licks his lips again.

"Sixty?" he says, and it makes something clench with affection inside her, how it comes out as a question, trying to be deferential and diffident at once, trying not to give away his investment. His hope.

She doubts that he could take sixty, if she uses her full strength (she would not insult either of them by using anything less), but she never gives him precisely what he asks for. His answer is there for her to gauge the level of his need; she weighs it on the scale of his body's responses beneath her hands, on the scale of what she has seen in his eyes in the days just passed.

She thinks of the arrow that grazed Ronon's neck on P-176, the smear of blood that came away on John's frantic fingers, searching for the wound. She thinks of the explosion on the south-west pier, of the burn on Rodney's cheek and the mortar dust in her own lungs and of Sergeant Bryce and Dr. Fagunwa still in the infirmary.

Sixty would be too many, but she will go as close as she dares, for both their benefit.

"We will start with ten," she says, as she always does. "To begin with."

"Yes," he says. "Please."

There is a catch and a tremor in his voice.

It would be pointless cruelty to make him wait any longer.

He watches her with clear eyes as she goes to the carved chest at the foot of her bed and takes out the cane. His palms are flat against the floor. Open.

When she trails the tip of the cane along the length of his back, neck to bottom, his muscles twitch under the touch. Long, visible shivers, anticipating. The wood is supple and steady in her hand. Her mouth is dry.

"One," she says, and pulls her arm back.

The cane sings against John's skin when it hits, his body rocking forward, his face rubbed against the floor. He attempts to hold any noise back, but she can still hear him. The sound reverberates, like his pulse beat, like his yearning, like the impact of the stroke up her arm.

There is a perfect red stripe across his bottom.

"Two," she says, and the stroke sings, with the weight of everything they each have to carry. She is the blade that cuts it loose.

At the end, when he has stood to leave, she lays her hands on his shoulders, bending him down towards her, and their foreheads touch. His breath across her lips, her air in his lungs. Warrior curved towards warrior, sister towards brother. That is where they close.


End file.
